Friday round-up: Give Big, play Footsey, scale up, drink Fairtrade McDonald’s coffee…

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As the champagne corks pop for the weekend, here’s the round-up of news and links:

– Bill Clinton’s been in town promoting his book, Giving, but of equal interest might be The Big Give website for potential donors….

– Social enterprise is on the curriculum in schools from September 2008. Those of you who did Business Studies at school will no doubt have your own opinions about whether this is a good or bad thing….

– SSE is heading up to Footsey later in October: see you there, people….CAN are also having a ‘Scaling Social Enterprise‘ event on October 30th; we’re on our residential, but looks like a good event

– The evening before Footsey is the Enterprising Solutions Awards, which should mean a few hangovers on the train to York. Word on the street is that it’s ‘cocktail dress’ (!), so look forward to the great and good being suited and booted.

– The 3rd Sector Minister has been out and about visiting two well-known social enterprises in the East Midlands.

– Get Sustainable Funding in Wales

–  Fairtrade in NY Times and (coffee-wise) used by McDonalds…

Have a good weekend…..

The Ernst and Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 is…

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…Brett Wigdortz of Teach First. Congratulations to Brett and his team for the award….which you can read more about here on the Business In The Community website. Brett had the misfortune to sit next to me on a plane to a conference once, when I got to know him, and we chatted a lot about Teach First, SSE, replication within the UK, and replication internationally. It was interesting to hear which aspects of his management consultancy background were most useful to his new role, and to hear how the organisation came about. It’s now been going for 5 years, and has certainly played a part (alongside various government-backed salary increases, golden handshakes, advertising) in changing the attitude towards teaching as a profession. Framing it as leadership development, rather than teacher training, and encouraging a collective sense of belonging amongst those who work on the programmes are keys to its success (and reasons why it is likely to endure).

You can read about all the Entrepreneurs of the Year on the E&Y website. I love the headline "Lord Harris of Carpetright is UK Overall Entrepreneur of the Year"…giving the impression that Carpetright is a town or region (arise, Lord Harris of Carpetright). He’s actually Lord Harris of Peckham, and congrats to him as well.

Do you do the green thing?

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I met up the other day with Rod Schwartz of Catalyst to chat about social entrepreneurs, his trip to the Balkans and SSE. Having taught in a school for the blind in Bulgaria back in the dim and distant past, I was interested to hear about social business / social entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe, and the potential for the movement over there.

In the course of our discussions, Rod mentioned that he was involved with an initiative called ‘Do the Green Thing‘, and that it was launching today….I vaguely remembered signing up to something and, sure enough, got an e-mail through today encouraging me to, well, do the green thing. Which this month is: walk more, drive less. It’s kind of a We Are What We Do meets iCount meets GlobalCool meets TipThePlanet. With extra advertising savvy and web (2.0)-usability thrown in.

They describe it as: "a not-for-profit online community uniting people to act against climate
change. Green Thing’s basic principle is to tempt people to do one
delightful thing a month and so build up a programme of green behaviour
one easy step at a time".

I like it, mostly because it has a sense of humour, a bit of personality and engaging content. Whether it gets (drum roll) critical mass and really takes off remains to be seen, but there’s some smart, plugged-in people behind it. And good use of the blogs/videos/podcasts/audio/wiki stuff out there, without it seeming chaotic (a challenge in itself).

Worth a bit of your valuable time.

Friday round-up: flavours, Bill Clinton, social networking, and more.

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It’s that time again: Friday’s round-up of news and views…

– First off, nothing riled me more this week than this article in Third Sector magazine…if I had a pound for every time I read the phrase "Social enterprise is flavour of the month", then suffice to say we would have another revenue stream. Grrrr. You can see my rant underneath the article, but the end of it demonstrates the problem: what’s needed is to "provid[e] a clearer explanation of what exactly a social enterprise is
supposed to be and how third sector organisations can take up this model". First of all, we’ve spent years arguing over definitions…there is a government definition which is widely used, and an understanding that social enterprises trade and earn to a greater degree, utilise different legal structures (CIC, Coop, etc) and have differnet governance (often, not trustees). Secondly, social enterprises are part of the third sector: they are third sector organisations themselves. Thirdly, there are a spectrum of choices, structures and legal models for organisations to choose from (or develop into), so why phrase it in such ‘them’ and ‘us’ terms?  Cliched articles written from people who don’t understand the wider sector, or even the terms they’re using, are really not going to help in explaining things clearly, are they?

– OK, rant over, on to more interesting things; Bill Clinton’s been all over the news re. his philanthropic initiatives. Lucy Bernholz has probably given the best summaries: on Clinton Bookbay and Mycommitment.org . Check out this bit in the Guardian as well (on Clinton’s rich mates…)

– YouTube have launched a  Non-Profit channel (also related to Clinton Global Initiative).

– Social enterprise: examples and links (US)

– Another potential revenue stream (see above) is the "if I had a pound for every time someone has told me about a new social networking site…." . All of them should read this article: Building a Social Networking Site is Not an Outreach Strategy. Go Laura at Idealware; I’m with you all the way.

– Too late for some, though: "What is Razoo? Social networking for changemakers…."

– Can’t find time to blog? [via Beth’s blog] Read How to blog without the time sink? (and use it as your back-up brain)

– UK-wise, Philanthropy UK have a new website, and it was good to stumble across Sal La Spada and the Institute for Philanthropy in an Observer supplement (a book on Money) recently.

– The Academy of Sustainable Communities have released their "Mind the Skills Gap" report about what skills are needed for sustainable communities. Worth a read.

– Heard of the World Entrepreneurship Summit? You have now.

Have a great weekend….

Visiting SSE Liverpool at Blackburne House

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Our CEO Alastair and myself visited Liverpool SSE yesterday, to deliver a couple of sessions and attend a meeting or two. The students also gave presentations about their projects, which was an inspiring and enjoyable hour…lots of laughs, and lots of amazing people. [NB: my session introduced them to the SSE extranet, so their profiles should be up soon here ]. Areas they are working in range from a garden centre on derelict land to capacity-building Muslim women to angling for disaffected youth to improving school attendance….and many more; a really diverse mix from all over Liverpool. Already, the cohort has a great feel to it, and the bonds and friendships were clear to see.

Blackburne House, which is the franchisee running the programme in Liverpool, is a fantastic venue for an SSE. And social enterprise and personal development run through its work like a stick of rock, making it a great partner and also a great source of inspiration for the students.

One little anecdote to illuminate the day, and the place. Our taxi to the station failed to turn up, and Sylvia (the programme manager) was trying to flag down a taxi. In the end, a local entrepreneur (who she didn’t know) called Steve offered to take us in his van, refusing any payment and giving us a concise summary about events in the city on the way. We made the train with time to spare, and in grateful return, here’s a plug for our impromptu cabbie’s business, Take A Flyer.

Chances of that happening in London? Slim to non-existent… :0)